I guess you could say that I am back home from my trip to England. Or you could do what Philip did in an attempt to stop me from crying at having to be seperated from him once again... And that is to tell me that being in America is now the vacation.

Either way, I had a really nice time and York is truly a wonderful place. It's the sort of place where you step off the train and the air seems so clean and fresh - there is not the enveloping depression that London possesses. York is a place where one stops by a real butcher's shop to pick fresh meat for dinner and one of the countless bakeries to get a loaf of bread. It's a place where there is always something new and beautiful to see in one of the hundreds of shops. Personally I was surprised and pleased to find a great selection of alternative clothing shops, antique stores where you can find netsuke carvings, and an incredible Japanese bar. And to be walking along ancient roads all the while? Passing through buildings older then the United States? The history and archeology alone is something to hold with awe. But to then be so completely surrounded by it all as you do nothing more then walk through the city? There are no words for such a thing.

My graduation day was cold and rainy. Some might even say the weather started to get bitter, but that would be an exaggeration, especially in comparison to the ceremony itself.

For the most part the ceremony was alright. It was small and quick and I didn't want to cringe for the better part of it. Until it came to one of the faculty speakers. One of the design faculty. (By the way, for those who aren't in the "know": Illustrators and designers hate each other. It bugs the designers to no end when an illustrator can step away from picture-making to design something better then they can when they didn't have to take self-important design classes. It bugs illustrators that designers are, for the most part, arrogant prats who make much more money then they do while producing horrific design that has the uncanny ability to butcher any illustration it comes close to.)

But I digress! This member of the design faculty stood up and immediately started talking straight to the designers, ignoring the fact that there were also illustrators, digital artists, animators, and filmmakers sitting among the graduates. He thought it would be fun to quote already painfully over-quoted designers and to say things like, "Less is more." Now don't get me wrong, in the right hands, that quote and the sentiment behind it can be a pretty cool one, but not at a graduation. Especially when that same speaker goes on to give us (well, okay - just the designers) the last lessons. Lesson #3 was "Less is more." Unfortunately, this is a lesson that ALL of us had already had before, designers or not, so it was really stupid that he though it would be novel. He then went on to have a total of 9 "lessons." Hardly taking his own advice. If he wanted to be cool, he should have made "less is more" the first lesson and then thrown all of the rest of his cards over his shoulder.

Still, if you can get over the radiant example of Designer as God, the ceremony was alright. But although it wasn't my school's main graduation, there were still enough people around to make me feel anxious. I don't deal well with crowds. But it's over now and I have my piece of paper that clearly states I am a bachelor of the fine arts.

But the best part of the whole thing? No sore feet and all that entails. Whereas all the other girls were wearing the fancy little numbers they had probably shopped long and hard for, I woke up the morning of the graduation and wondered for the first time what I was going to wear. I picked the best shoes I have - my tall punky black boots. It was a relief. I'm not sure I can describe quite how much I've always despised being harassed into shopping for formal shoes.

Within the next couple of days I will be graduating and I'll also be going to England for a brief visit! I finally get to see the place that Philip has gotten in York, and I get to meet his white leopard gecko, Jigglypuff. I also get to be shown around York! I have been there once before but it wasn't for very long and there's a ton to see and do.

So today I get to start doing all of that fun stuff like tidying up, making sure there's enough cat food, and paying off bills. I've also been discovering a lot of really useful things today as I've been thinking about what to pack. Such as the fact that I have a box that my large cel books fit into quite nicely, with just enough room around for some padding. And that my framed cel of Shidou will fit into my luggage! I'm not going to be taking either of those things this time around I don't think, but it truly is useful to know. The only problem I can think of there ever being is the fact that the frame and the box won't both fit into my luggage at the same time, so I will have to take that into consideration at some point.

But what should I take? I guess some of my wedding kimono parts. They can be pretty bulky, although not as much as one might think. But still, as I think about what to take, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. When am I going to get a chance to move all of my stuff? I don't have a whole lot of it really, and there's some stuff I can do without for awhile. But I definitely won't be able to take all of it in the few trips I'm going to make before the wedding. Sounds like between now and then I've got to make a priority list.

With college over and done with, I actually have time to do things I've been wanting to - like art! (Errr. Why does that not sound right?) But so I've done a new digital image and I really like the way it came out. It was rendered in Poser and then taken into photoshop for some major postworking.

It's a portrait of my current RPG character of choice, Sephirothe. (Basically he's an elf version of Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII with a much more complicated storyline.) He's also my favourite "model" to work with when it comes to Poser renders because he's just so bishy! (Short for bishounen, which is a Japanese term for a pretty guy.)

The full sized image is 1500 pixels tall by 1920 pixels wide, at 150dpi. So needless to say I've shrunk it down quite a lot for presentation on the web. Clicking on this little image will take you to a somewhat larger version.

If you follow the sidebar link to my Renderosity gallery, I've posted an alternative version of this image as well. During the postworking process, it went two different ways and I thought both deserved to be posted, although the one shown here is my favourite of the two.

The wedding bands got here today! Of course I had to have a sneak peek - they are very very cool. They are from Earthshine. We got the 'classic wedding bands' in white and yellow gold. I got mine in a star pattern without etching and Philip got the twist pattern with etching. I have to admit, the etching is very nice. It looks a bit much in the photographs on the website, but it's actually quite subtle. I'm torn between sending my ring back for the etching process or keeping it the way it is, but I just don't know. Both ways have their charm!

Update: I managed to take a fairly good photograph of the rings today and I've spliced them together into one image for easier comparison.

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Blood-flecked jelly mucus hits you for 1 point of damage.

You feel sick! You are diseased!

Besides a small departmental graduation ceremony coming up on the 17th, this past Thursday was my last day of college! YAY! I can't begin to say how glad I am that it's finally over. I really didn't enjoy the college experience. I guess I felt it could have been more productive and worthwhile.

But so on my first day free from school.... I was sick. It actually started Thursday evening after my last exam with a stomach ache. Today it was a stomach ache, a sore throat, swollen glands, and a flushed feeling. It's technically Saturday as I am writing this, but not by much, and I'm still definitely feeling rough. What's up with that?

I added a new section to my sidebar this evening. "Foxfire lanterns" is a baby blogroll. Besides Thudfactor and Elfnoodles, I've never really had the time to go read other people's weblogs, but there are a few that I've stumbled upon and found amusing. Entries will probably come and go as I stumble across even more or decide I really can't stand some of the people I'm linking to.

The background picture is a cropping from a Japanese woodblock print of many foxes meeting together at a tree. Each fox has a little flame floating near it. In the legends about kitsune, this foxfire is a small ball of fire that they can make. Some times they use it as a lantern to light their way, while at others it's just a toy. But it can also be used as a weapon and as a way of luring unwary travelers.

Appropriate for a blogroll, I thought.

Earlier today when I was talking to Philip on the phone he told me about a terribly exciting prospect. I don't think I can describe quite how excited I am by it. Every time I think about it, I start to feel bouncey. But I'm going to make you read some to find out what it is.

Everyone knows I love foxes. And just about everyone gets me fox stuff as gifts, which is very cool. Philip's mum in particular really loves to get me fox stuff and when she was visiting him this weekend, apparently bought me a few things (along with stuff she already had for me!) So I will have many fox things waiting for me when I move to England.

But so today in particular, I guess his mum mentioned that she knows someone who does fox rescue stuff. And so to get right to it: I might get to visit with foxes! That would be so cool!! It seems like everyone connected strongly to me has seen a wild red fox. But I've never seen one at all! I don't think I've ever even seen one in a zoo. Isn't that so sad?

I'm so happy and so excited about getting to visit and play with foxes that I just want to start crying. I might even be able to hold one. I'm so desperately looking forward to it that I don't know what to make of myself. I really do just want to burst into tears at the thought of getting to be with them and interact with them.

Kitsu-chan thinks it's lame that no one leaves comments or even seems to read my weblog at all.

One of the classes I've actually been enjoying this past semester is a video game design course. It had a concentration on the modeling and texturing aspect. The main project for the course was to create and model a character that was under 500 polygons. (Surprisingly hard to keep it under that number although it sounds like a lot.) We also had to texture the model.

I, of course, did a fox character.

I designed him to be really stylized, almost like the zodiac animals in Fruits Basket. I was also originally going to do a really simple texture (and I might still), but the teacher wanted me to do something more complex then that. So I did something inbetween. The outer areas have a lot of realistic detail that I got from photo reference, but then it shifts into a more painterly style and fields of colour. I thought the resulting combination was quite striking. The face is the most detailed area of them all and was constructed from bits and pieces of at least five different photographs. I'm really proud of the results although it isn't perfect and needs more work to be truly useable.

Here he is from an angle that doesn't really show his structure, but that I think is cool. He isn't boned for posing or anything yet, so bear in mind that for now he's spread-eagle.

Kitsu-chan had this to say about my model: Yiff!

I was in Petsmart today buying a couple things for the cats when I went down the dog toy aisle and saw all sorts of cute squeaky toys. The type made from the faux sheepskin. Those are my basset hound Jasmine's favourite type of toy and the one she has doesn't sqeak anymore. It's actually really sad to watch her grab it and shift the thing around in her mouth, trying to make it squeak. It's her favourite accessory. Whenever she wants to look particularly cute, she grabs that toy.

One of the cutest of these toys was one in the shape of a fox. It's really adoreable! I got it for Jasmine because she needed a new one and they do say that a good way to honour your totem spirit is to give gifts that represent it. Somehow there's something wonderfully twisted and perverse about giving a basset hound a plushy toy of a fox.

But I have a problem. I don't know if I should give it to her or not now! There is the warped aspect of this particular gift-giving to consider, but it's also just too cute! On the way home, I gave it a name. I'm calling it Kitsu-chan. Kitsu is fox in Japanese, although more literally I think it's supposed to mean 'the sound a fox makes.' And -chan is a title that means 'little.' So considering it is a squeaky toy, I thought that was a really good name.

So until I decide whether or not to give it to my basset, please welcome Kitsu-chan! Kitsu-chan is going to be my weblog assistant.

Kitsu-chan!

Earlier on in the semester, one of my professors decided that I should graduate with an all-digital portfolio. Which sounded good to me! But it turns out I need to have a total of 20 pieces and I was only able to find about 18. So last night I dug through my computer and found a couple of old Poser renders that I had never done anything with but that deserved a new life with the help of some serious Photoshop work. And oh, did I ever give them a new life. Let's just say I didn't feel restrained when I was working on them and I did a lot of strange stuff that had never occured to me before. You can check out the first one via the link I have to my gallery @ Renderosity. But the second one is too sophisticated (or something like that) to really be appreciated there. It'll be exclusively shown here instead!

I've called the piece Glass Ghost because it's a rather creepy image in a way. Clicking on the picture will take you to a slightly larger version where you can see some more of the detail.

As I said, it's quite a departure. Lately with my digital work I've been wanting to go in more of a fine art direction. It's just too bad that no one buys digital fine art. I'd have to try to translate my images to canvas in order to sell them. I could probably do it, but it'd be a lot of work. But then again, if it actually sells, it'd be worth it.